July 23, 2025
SEOUL – The famous English nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty” is about an egg sitting on a wall that falls to the ground and is broken irreparably. There are a variety of Humpty Dumpty animation videos on YouTube for children to watch. The main lyrics go like this: “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.”
An egg is protected by an eggshell, and yet it is fragile. It is unstable even on a flat surface and thus easily falls to the ground. When the egg is broken, you cannot repair it. We all resemble eggs, crouching inside of a shell of egotism and stubbornness that is vulnerable to impact.
Ostensibly, the nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty” is about the fragility of a hard shell and the impossibility of repairing it when it is broken. Deep inside, it warns of our headstrongness, instability and possible annihilation as a result. Another, deeper meaning may be: “A stubborn man inside a hard shell will lose balance easily, fall eventually and shatter irreparably.”
These days, South Korea seems to resemble Humpty Dumpty sitting on a wall. The two worlds divided by the wall it is sitting on could be a symbol of bipolarity surrounding the country these days: Left and Right, progressivism and conservatism, and the two mutually antagonizing superpowers of the East and the West.
Considering the geopolitical identity of South Korea, it is already clear which side it is on. Nevertheless, South Korea may have to maintain a balance between the two because its people, too, are divided by ideologies, and so are its political parties. Furthermore, the international disputes and altercations of power politics are complicated.
For South Korea to survive between these two powers is not simply a matter of opportunism. As the geopolitical landscape changes, it is important to adapt to new circumstances. For example, South Korea’s past controversial policy, “national security with one country and economy with another,” is obsolete now. Rather, the Humpty Dumpty anecdote seems to very clearly depict the predicament of today’s South Korea facing both domestic ideological clashes and overseas conflicts of superpowers that exert tremendous pressures on it.
Under the circumstances, if South Korea remains enclosed within a nutshell of thought, it will inevitably shatter when it suffers a fall, as Humpty Dumpty does, and nothing will put it together again. In order not to fall, South Korea should break the shell of obstinacy and self-righteousness. Only then will it gain flexibility and balance to stay safe.
Currently, the newly launched Lee Jae Myung administration, too, seems to sit on a wall just like Humpty Dumpty, under heavy pressure from either side. Unless it breaks out of the hard shell of dogmatic ideologies and gains elasticity, it might not be able to avoid falling from the wall if things go awry. Once it falls, recuperation may not be possible. Thus, staying on the wall as a well-balanced government is imperative for South Korea to survive.
Of course, we must choose one of the two opposing worlds, according to the identity of South Korea that our Constitution defines. Meanwhile, our leaders should refrain from steering the country to the far Left or far Right because we cannot balance on one foot. Moreover, when we come to decide something, we should be wise and thoughtful, so as not to make fatal mistakes.
In South Korea, however, politicians themselves are those who are walking totteringly on the thin wall between power and prison, as Kim Young-ha puts in his novel, “Your Republic Is Calling You.” They daydream that they can wield power forever. However, many of them fall and end up in prison eventually. Then, even “all the president’s men” cannot bring them back to normal life again.
In a sense, ordinary people, too, resemble Humpty Dumpty because they are sitting precariously on a wall between two different things in this polarized world. If we lose balance, we will fall and be broken into pieces. Then, nothing can repair the damage. Still, however, we stubbornly keep refusing to shed the shell that covers us. Sadly, we can make wrong decisions and regret them for the rest of our lives.
Although “Humpty Dumpty” is a children’s nursery rhyme, it opens our eyes to the present plight of South Korea. Indeed, we are now sitting on a shaky, dangerous wall, under which a dark, gaping abyss is waiting for us to fall. If we fall from the grace of a wall, nobody can save us. To avoid a tragic fall, we should break out of our rigid shell and become interactive, tender-skinned people.
“Humpty Dumpty” metaphorically shows us the perilous situation South Korea is now in and illuminates ways in which we can overcome the crisis.
Kim Seong-kon is a professor emeritus of English at Seoul National University and a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. The views expressed here are his own. — Ed.
